25 Professionals Share The Weirdest Things They Saw In Someone Else’s House
The strangest things workers saw upon entering a customer's home that made them want to leave immediately.
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We never know what goes on behind closed doors; the strangest things could be happening, and the world would remain oblivious unless someone has a reason to enter the premises. Recently, a curious netizen posed the question, “Redditors who go into people’s houses for their job, what is the strangest/ creepiest thing you’ve ever seen or experienced?” In response, workers shared unsettling sights they encountered during a home visit. We found the most disturbing experiences that made folks want to nope out as fast as possible, and shared them in the gallery below.
Image source: Milkshake89
I used to install residential replacement windows. My boss and I have to walk in out of almost every room that has a window. We go into this ranch style home, I noticed a small bed and pillow on the floor in a closet. Kind of looked like a dogs bed. Then throughout the day I notice they don't have a dog, they don't have a TV, they don't have any electronics, no kids toys. But what they do have is an adopted middle Eastern girl. That was where she slept. Mind you they have a little girl (5 yrs old maybe) with her own room and a little boy (7 yrs old maybe) with his own room both with gate latches on the outside of the door. She slept in a f*****g closet. I mentioned it to my boss. Said he's run into this kind of thing before, called them "Bible beaters". He brushed it off. I didn't. I called the police, anonymously. Idk what happened. I didn't work for that guy much longer.
Image source: monkeypowah, pixel-shot.com / freepik (not the actual photo)
Boiler repairs...4 sons in the house, playing xboxs, all mentally ill, rooms two foot deep in takeaway trays.
A duck and a rat loose in the other room, the mother was just in her underwear with a fresh kidney transplant scar around her middle, the hot pipe had snapped off the washing machine and was running the combi boiler flat out, she had tied the pipe into the sink,' How longs it been like that for 'I said...about 6 weeks she said, the bottom had dropped out of the wall units because of the steam.
The carpet in the duck/rat room was sodden with p**s and c**p,.I went into the lads rooms, they never flinched or acknowledged me, one was holding the controller but the tv was off.
Image source: hU0N5000, Mikhail Seleznev / Unsplash (not the actual photo)
Few years ago I was volunteering with the city council helping people clean their houses after the neighborhood I lived in had been flooded.
One house belonged to a Chinese couple who ran the local convenience store. They had asked our crew to help remove water damaged carpet from the ground floor rooms of their house so it could be thrown away.
As we were removing this carpet, we realised that it ran in one piece under a closed door and into a locked room, so we asked the lady of the house if she wanted us to cut it off at the door and leave whatever was in the locked room behind, or if she wanted to open the room and have us remove the carpet in there also. She responded, "I'll check with my husband what to do. That's his special room."
This lead to some nervously puzzled looks from our crew. What does a middle aged Chinese man who owns a convenience store keep in his "special room"?
Eventually the wife came back with a set of keys and told us that we could remove the carpet in the room and she unlocked the door. We all crowded around as the door opened to reveal..
A room with carpet up the walls, a mirror ball on the ceiling, a stage at one end with a PA standard sound system, a projector, and in the corner just about the fanciest karaoke machine I'd ever seen. Special room indeed.
Image source: Deodorized, George Dagerotip / Unsplash (not the actual photo)
I'm a pool guy, I go into people's backyards to clean their pools.
One week, it was a 4 day week due to a holiday, so I'm not going on the scheduled days, I'm cramming 5 days of work into a 4 day week.
It's a hot summer day, and I walk into the backyard of this house, get through both gates, and I'm met with an odd sight. These 2 kids, maybe 14 or 15, are absolutely butt a*s naked, cuddled on a poolside recliner. I look at them, they look at me. I immediately turn around and they run inside.
I see the owners all the time, but I've never seen these kids before. Next week I go, the wife was outside, and we started chit chatting. I ask her if she's had any visitors recently, she says no. I let her know that I saw some kids in her backyard, and she cut me off. She says, "Yeah, suprised you haven't met them, lemme introduce you."
They were brother and sister.
They cancelled service within 2 months.
Image source: jl101794, Clay Banks / Unsplash (not the actual photo)
I'm a firefighter/EMT so its pretty normal to find a dead body, but one will always stay with me. There was this middle aged guy who lived in his van out in a parking lot somewhat out of town. He never bothered anybody, so the police just let him stay there. It was around middle of July in Arizona (so about 105-110 degree heat) and we got a call to go check on him. Nobody had seen him for a while, and somebody had complained of a foul odor coming from his van. We all knew what we were gonna find, but nothing could prepare us for what we actually came acrossed. I opened the back door to his van and a cloud of flies flew out so thick you couldn't see through it. I was immediately punched in the face by the stench of death, and when the flies cleared out we finally got a look at what was in there. The guy had been dead for atleast 2 weeks and his cats had survived by eating the fleshier parts of his body. I've seen my fair share of dead bodies, but something about a guy who had been in a van for 2 weeks in Arizona summer heat with cats eating his body that just sticks with you.
Image source: GIfuckingJane, source
My SO is a repair man. He went on a call where the customer was about 45-50 years old and *huge*. I guess the customer kept talking about his wife this, his wife that, while my SO was working. The guy walks away and comes back and starts talking in a high pitched voice about his husband. Apparently he had suffered from a TBI and now sometimes thought he was a man with a wife *and* a women with a husband. My SO said he felt so creeped out, like the guy was going to lock him in a basement or something.
Image source: anon, EyeEm / freepik (not the actual photo)
I'm in insurance restoration, we deal with houses that have caught on fire, or any insurance problem, really. Long story short, a woman's house catches on fire. Woman has a deep freezer in the garage with the body of every cat she has ever owned since the 80's....Guess who stumbled upon it, after the power had been out for a week?
Image source: Ed98208, Barbara Burgess / Unsplash (not the actual photo)
I used to volunteer for a wildlife rescue and did a pickup at a very elderly woman's house where she had found a baby bird. When I got there she carefully uncovered it from the towel she'd placed it in, and it was just a chestnut.
Image source: anon, Dorrell Tibbs / Unsplash (not the actual photo)
Community mental health nurse. Visited an elderly lady in London one evening. She lived in an attic/loft apartment. It was winter and starting to get dark outside.
I spent about a half hour with her talking. She was a bit manic so was just talking at me for ages really.
After a while I asked her if she was going to cook some dinner for herself. She said that her friend was going to do it. I asked when her friend was coming over. She said that he's already here and looks over my shoulder. I turn around and there's black man standing up in the dark corner of the room behind me. Just standing there staring at me. I didn't see or hear him for the whole half hour I was there. He was obviously clearly a patient of our service too and didn't look too well at that moment.
Noped the f**k out of there.
Image source: christianthegreen, Vlad Surkov / Unsplash (not the actual photo)
I work in apartment complexes and constantly go into people's units, once we were taking over a property and doing this we had to go into every single apartment and room to check for the conditions of things. One of the apartments I went in to had a room that was covered in nothing but pictures of ceiling fans. There was a bed in the middle of the room, and a small computer monitor in a corner, and hundreds of pictures of fans, big and small, all over the walls. Fans from magazines, fans printed out, fans fans fans.
Image source: NeverEnufWTF, kotkoa / freepik (not the actual photo)
Construction inspector here. I was looking at a house about to be renovated by new buyers. The basement was all wood-paneled walls, Spanish tile floors, and s**t-tons of animal heads mounted on the walls; very old-school "hunting lodge" style.
Except there was also a room off the basement, behind a bookcase "hidden door" that I only noticed because I was trying to understand the relationship between the foundation and the main floor. Small room, maybe 80 SF. The ceiling had a single fluorescent fixture, recessed, with a heavy steel grating over it. The floor *and walls* were covered in sheet vinyl, and there was a single metal chair in the room. It was sitting over a floor drain.
I noped the f**k right out of there. The renovation never happened; the owners tore the house down and built a new one. I still can't drive by that site without feeling a chill.
Image source: Grabbsy2, EyeEm / freepik (not the actual photo)
"Dead body" might not really be surprising, here, but I still cant eat certain foods after experiencing it, and certain smells make me sick, too.
I was working for a condo building, letting air conditioning guys look at units within condos. I was just a key holder. One of the last units of the day was a condo, knocked on the door, no answer, opened the door, immediate waft of foul smell. Just some rotten eggs, maybe?
Enter the unit, see some moldy bread on the counter, sweaty looking cake (condensation) on the stove.
"Its pretty f****n rank in here" I say to the guys. I look into the bedroom and see an older black woman with kindof a bad blonde dye job, hunched over in bed, in a bit of a yoga pose? ("sat up" in bed, but head at feet, legs crossed) Im immediately embarrassed. "Sorry ma'am, I didnt know you were home!" I said.
No movement.I take a step closer. "Ma'am?"
"Shes f****n dead, dude." One of the air conditioning guys says, as he hurries out of the unit. His only evidence is the smell, and my tone of voice when I said "Ma'am?"
I step a little closer, the womans skin is "bruised" and has mouldy patches on it. This is not a "yoga pose", this is a "settling in to the bed" pose.
Some facts I later learned from the police: Shes a young caucasian blonde woman (i.e. not an older black woman). Last diary entry 10 days prior, pill bottles and last will and testament on the bedside table.
Food I cant eat: wonton soup (first thing I tried to eat, 8 hours later). Smell I cant handle: dirty fridge (e.g. mouldy items left by careless coworker)
I also no longer fantasize about how cool the zombie apocalypse would be.
edit: Sorry for the Rorschach-esque narration. Im on mobile so that was the fastest way to tell the story. Funny side note, the 9-11 operator spent a full 2 minutes trying to get the security guard to touch the body, to make sure she was not actually still alive.
Also I got the employee of the month award, and a $100 gift certificate.
Though, it was admittedly a slow month.
Image source: PowerfulDinoSlayer
I used to do in home therapy.
Worst was this home with a mom with MR and three young kids. The house was DESTROYED inside. Chairs had been busted apart, the couch shredded with a knife. The beds were filthy, had no sheets and had also been knifed. The kitchen cabinets had been completely busted apart.
And there were jars of pee EVERYWHERE.
I asked if the plumbing worked...they showed me it did. I asked if one of the kids had a problem. Nope. Asked about the pee jars and mom just smiled and ignored me.
I did call CPS.
Image source: twiddlepipper, Alexander Mils / Unsplash (not the actual photo)
Old guy with learning disability. Went in to clean his house and found floor to ceiling money. Hundreds of thousands just piled up every where - a lot of it no longer in circulation. Had to get the police in to make him and it safe.
Image source: AgonizingFury, wirestock_creators / freepik (not the actual photo)
I used to install Dish Network for a living.
I was installing for an elderly lady, who complained that her "sister's" TV always showed the same thing hers did. I had a 2 tv installation order so I figured that would be OK.
I finished the installation and was demonstrating the system when she looked at the full length mirror and complained that her sister's tv was still showing the same thing.
Noped out of there as quick as I could, and left notes on the account in case she called in.
Image source: Virginin, Anmol Chainani / Unsplash (not the actual photo)
Worked a while in what would probably be called Home Care in english, I've visited a lot of weird people and seen some weird s**t.
Just the other day I was in a apartment so stained by nicotine and other chemicals from smoking that you could literally scrape the residue of the walls and doors. Pounds of it collected over decades of smoking more than a couple of packs a day.
It's sad really, the guy just sits there all day hugging his boxed wine and watch tv and smoke like a chimney.
Image source: anon, Natalia Blauth / Unsplash (not the actual photo)
I petsit. I've got a pretty good set of regular clients built up. I stay at their homes while they're away, which gives me plenty of time to get very familiar with their houses. Surprisingly, I usually feel more at ease at my clients' homes than my own, but weird stuff happens occasionally.
* Last summer, I was taking care of a pair of cats. I went out at 8 pm to stop by the grocery store and pick up some dinner. When I came back, the fireplace was lit. I was terrified, because either someone entered the house and lit the fireplace, or it's malfunctioning and somehow managed to light itself. I went back to my car and called my client to ask if that was a known issue. Woke her up (oops), and she explained that the fireplace was connected to the heating system, and it would turn itself on if the temperature inside got low enough.
* Found an inflatable butt plug in a bathroom drawer of another client's house. I was just looking for some ibuprofen, but I found that instead.
* At a house way out in the middle of nowhere, I was up late studying one evening, and the exterior lights kept turning on. I figured it was just a wild animal, but it only happened one evening in the entire time I was there, and I later tested the range of the motion sensors. You had to be pretty close to the house and make significant movements to turn them on.
* Last month, a couple people were found m******d a block away from my favorite client's previous house. My client moved last year, but it was still scary that that happened in her neighborhood. While I was petsitting at her old house, someone did get stabbed on the trail behind her house.
* While letting the dog out into the front yard in the middle of the night (he likes going out there better), I watched a pair of girls get out of what was probably an Uber. They were clearly trashed, and as they walked down the street toward their house, the driver followed them, asking if they wanted to come home with him. I should have yelled at him that if he didn't leave them alone, I'd call the cops. He did leave them alone eventually, but I stayed outside with the dog until they got inside their house.
I've probably got more, but I can't think of anything at the moment.
Image source: anon
I used to do pest control. While baiting a house for roaches I made my way to their bathroom...and on top of the toilet tank there was a decorative bowl. Nothing out of the ordinary right? Well the bowl wasnt full of extra tp or washcloths..it was full of white-cheddar cheeto puffs.
Image source: receding_punchline, Jon Tyson / Unsplash (not the actual photo)
A couple of years ago I worked for a cleaning company. One of my first days on the job, I was cleaning a woman's house and entered a room on the second floor that - I kid you not - was full of only clocks and mirrors. I've never been so aware of my own mortality.
Image source: anon, ArthurHidden / freepik (not the actual photo)
My wife is a Physical Therapist who does home health visits. She has seen some s**t.
* Several hoarders. People who have bizarrely huge collections of curios like snow globes, crosses, and one lady who had a disturbingly huge collection of Princess Diana memorabilia.
* Several old guys who tried to subtly proposition her for sexual favors. Then there was the one old guy who was recovering from a knee replacement and flat out said something like, "I haven't had a b*****b in like 20 years. Is that something you do?"
* Crazy cat ladies. They are real. And sometimes their houses are infested with fleas.
* There was a lady who had experienced a stroke and had lost a good chunk of her impulse control as well as mobility on one side of her body. Every single time my wife saw her, there were two dildos on her kitchen counter, in plain view of the living room where my wife worked with the patient.
#1
Image source: Milkshake89
I used to install residential replacement windows. My boss and I have to walk in out of almost every room that has a window. We go into this ranch style home, I noticed a small bed and pillow on the floor in a closet. Kind of looked like a dogs bed. Then throughout the day I notice they don't have a dog, they don't have a TV, they don't have any electronics, no kids toys. But what they do have is an adopted middle Eastern girl. That was where she slept. Mind you they have a little girl (5 yrs old maybe) with her own room and a little boy (7 yrs old maybe) with his own room both with gate latches on the outside of the door. She slept in a f*****g closet. I mentioned it to my boss. Said he's run into this kind of thing before, called them "Bible beaters". He brushed it off. I didn't. I called the police, anonymously. Idk what happened. I didn't work for that guy much longer.
#2
Image source: monkeypowah, pixel-shot.com / freepik (not the actual photo)
Boiler repairs...4 sons in the house, playing xboxs, all mentally ill, rooms two foot deep in takeaway trays.
A duck and a rat loose in the other room, the mother was just in her underwear with a fresh kidney transplant scar around her middle, the hot pipe had snapped off the washing machine and was running the combi boiler flat out, she had tied the pipe into the sink,' How longs it been like that for 'I said...about 6 weeks she said, the bottom had dropped out of the wall units because of the steam.
The carpet in the duck/rat room was sodden with p**s and c**p,.I went into the lads rooms, they never flinched or acknowledged me, one was holding the controller but the tv was off.
#3
Image source: hU0N5000, Mikhail Seleznev / Unsplash (not the actual photo)
Few years ago I was volunteering with the city council helping people clean their houses after the neighborhood I lived in had been flooded.
One house belonged to a Chinese couple who ran the local convenience store. They had asked our crew to help remove water damaged carpet from the ground floor rooms of their house so it could be thrown away.
As we were removing this carpet, we realised that it ran in one piece under a closed door and into a locked room, so we asked the lady of the house if she wanted us to cut it off at the door and leave whatever was in the locked room behind, or if she wanted to open the room and have us remove the carpet in there also. She responded, "I'll check with my husband what to do. That's his special room."
This lead to some nervously puzzled looks from our crew. What does a middle aged Chinese man who owns a convenience store keep in his "special room"?
Eventually the wife came back with a set of keys and told us that we could remove the carpet in the room and she unlocked the door. We all crowded around as the door opened to reveal..
A room with carpet up the walls, a mirror ball on the ceiling, a stage at one end with a PA standard sound system, a projector, and in the corner just about the fanciest karaoke machine I'd ever seen. Special room indeed.
#4
Image source: Deodorized, George Dagerotip / Unsplash (not the actual photo)
I'm a pool guy, I go into people's backyards to clean their pools.
One week, it was a 4 day week due to a holiday, so I'm not going on the scheduled days, I'm cramming 5 days of work into a 4 day week.
It's a hot summer day, and I walk into the backyard of this house, get through both gates, and I'm met with an odd sight. These 2 kids, maybe 14 or 15, are absolutely butt a*s naked, cuddled on a poolside recliner. I look at them, they look at me. I immediately turn around and they run inside.
I see the owners all the time, but I've never seen these kids before. Next week I go, the wife was outside, and we started chit chatting. I ask her if she's had any visitors recently, she says no. I let her know that I saw some kids in her backyard, and she cut me off. She says, "Yeah, suprised you haven't met them, lemme introduce you."
They were brother and sister.
They cancelled service within 2 months.
#5
Image source: jl101794, Clay Banks / Unsplash (not the actual photo)
I'm a firefighter/EMT so its pretty normal to find a dead body, but one will always stay with me. There was this middle aged guy who lived in his van out in a parking lot somewhat out of town. He never bothered anybody, so the police just let him stay there. It was around middle of July in Arizona (so about 105-110 degree heat) and we got a call to go check on him. Nobody had seen him for a while, and somebody had complained of a foul odor coming from his van. We all knew what we were gonna find, but nothing could prepare us for what we actually came acrossed. I opened the back door to his van and a cloud of flies flew out so thick you couldn't see through it. I was immediately punched in the face by the stench of death, and when the flies cleared out we finally got a look at what was in there. The guy had been dead for atleast 2 weeks and his cats had survived by eating the fleshier parts of his body. I've seen my fair share of dead bodies, but something about a guy who had been in a van for 2 weeks in Arizona summer heat with cats eating his body that just sticks with you.
#6
Image source: GIfuckingJane, source
My SO is a repair man. He went on a call where the customer was about 45-50 years old and *huge*. I guess the customer kept talking about his wife this, his wife that, while my SO was working. The guy walks away and comes back and starts talking in a high pitched voice about his husband. Apparently he had suffered from a TBI and now sometimes thought he was a man with a wife *and* a women with a husband. My SO said he felt so creeped out, like the guy was going to lock him in a basement or something.
#7
Image source: anon, EyeEm / freepik (not the actual photo)
I'm in insurance restoration, we deal with houses that have caught on fire, or any insurance problem, really. Long story short, a woman's house catches on fire. Woman has a deep freezer in the garage with the body of every cat she has ever owned since the 80's....Guess who stumbled upon it, after the power had been out for a week?
#8
Image source: Ed98208, Barbara Burgess / Unsplash (not the actual photo)
I used to volunteer for a wildlife rescue and did a pickup at a very elderly woman's house where she had found a baby bird. When I got there she carefully uncovered it from the towel she'd placed it in, and it was just a chestnut.
#9
Image source: anon, Dorrell Tibbs / Unsplash (not the actual photo)
Community mental health nurse. Visited an elderly lady in London one evening. She lived in an attic/loft apartment. It was winter and starting to get dark outside.
I spent about a half hour with her talking. She was a bit manic so was just talking at me for ages really.
After a while I asked her if she was going to cook some dinner for herself. She said that her friend was going to do it. I asked when her friend was coming over. She said that he's already here and looks over my shoulder. I turn around and there's black man standing up in the dark corner of the room behind me. Just standing there staring at me. I didn't see or hear him for the whole half hour I was there. He was obviously clearly a patient of our service too and didn't look too well at that moment.
Noped the f**k out of there.
#10
Image source: christianthegreen, Vlad Surkov / Unsplash (not the actual photo)
I work in apartment complexes and constantly go into people's units, once we were taking over a property and doing this we had to go into every single apartment and room to check for the conditions of things. One of the apartments I went in to had a room that was covered in nothing but pictures of ceiling fans. There was a bed in the middle of the room, and a small computer monitor in a corner, and hundreds of pictures of fans, big and small, all over the walls. Fans from magazines, fans printed out, fans fans fans.
#11
Image source: NeverEnufWTF, kotkoa / freepik (not the actual photo)
Construction inspector here. I was looking at a house about to be renovated by new buyers. The basement was all wood-paneled walls, Spanish tile floors, and s**t-tons of animal heads mounted on the walls; very old-school "hunting lodge" style.
Except there was also a room off the basement, behind a bookcase "hidden door" that I only noticed because I was trying to understand the relationship between the foundation and the main floor. Small room, maybe 80 SF. The ceiling had a single fluorescent fixture, recessed, with a heavy steel grating over it. The floor *and walls* were covered in sheet vinyl, and there was a single metal chair in the room. It was sitting over a floor drain.
I noped the f**k right out of there. The renovation never happened; the owners tore the house down and built a new one. I still can't drive by that site without feeling a chill.
#12
Image source: Grabbsy2, EyeEm / freepik (not the actual photo)
"Dead body" might not really be surprising, here, but I still cant eat certain foods after experiencing it, and certain smells make me sick, too.
I was working for a condo building, letting air conditioning guys look at units within condos. I was just a key holder. One of the last units of the day was a condo, knocked on the door, no answer, opened the door, immediate waft of foul smell. Just some rotten eggs, maybe?
Enter the unit, see some moldy bread on the counter, sweaty looking cake (condensation) on the stove.
"Its pretty f****n rank in here" I say to the guys. I look into the bedroom and see an older black woman with kindof a bad blonde dye job, hunched over in bed, in a bit of a yoga pose? ("sat up" in bed, but head at feet, legs crossed) Im immediately embarrassed. "Sorry ma'am, I didnt know you were home!" I said.
No movement.I take a step closer. "Ma'am?"
"Shes f****n dead, dude." One of the air conditioning guys says, as he hurries out of the unit. His only evidence is the smell, and my tone of voice when I said "Ma'am?"
I step a little closer, the womans skin is "bruised" and has mouldy patches on it. This is not a "yoga pose", this is a "settling in to the bed" pose.
Some facts I later learned from the police: Shes a young caucasian blonde woman (i.e. not an older black woman). Last diary entry 10 days prior, pill bottles and last will and testament on the bedside table.
Food I cant eat: wonton soup (first thing I tried to eat, 8 hours later). Smell I cant handle: dirty fridge (e.g. mouldy items left by careless coworker)
I also no longer fantasize about how cool the zombie apocalypse would be.
edit: Sorry for the Rorschach-esque narration. Im on mobile so that was the fastest way to tell the story. Funny side note, the 9-11 operator spent a full 2 minutes trying to get the security guard to touch the body, to make sure she was not actually still alive.
Also I got the employee of the month award, and a $100 gift certificate.
Though, it was admittedly a slow month.
#13
I perform Home Inspections, and I've see a lot of pretty disgusting/creepy/and strange stuff. But the worst is when the home is still occupied by a renter. This one house had at least 4-6 cats, black mold all over every window and bathroom fixture (and the children's beds were directly next to in the bed rooms), and the house had a vomit inducing, musty and poop smell. Within seconds of entering the home, I told them I was going to inspect the crawl space first (which I ALWAYS do LAST), so that I could suit up with my full face respirator. I did the entire inspection in full organic bio-hazard gear. I gag a little just typing this. Image source: StaceyEve#14
Image source: PowerfulDinoSlayer
I used to do in home therapy.
Worst was this home with a mom with MR and three young kids. The house was DESTROYED inside. Chairs had been busted apart, the couch shredded with a knife. The beds were filthy, had no sheets and had also been knifed. The kitchen cabinets had been completely busted apart.
And there were jars of pee EVERYWHERE.
I asked if the plumbing worked...they showed me it did. I asked if one of the kids had a problem. Nope. Asked about the pee jars and mom just smiled and ignored me.
I did call CPS.
#15
Image source: twiddlepipper, Alexander Mils / Unsplash (not the actual photo)
Old guy with learning disability. Went in to clean his house and found floor to ceiling money. Hundreds of thousands just piled up every where - a lot of it no longer in circulation. Had to get the police in to make him and it safe.
#16
I did junk removal over the summer. One lady had a very large, very detailed painting of two horses getting it on hanging in her upstairs hallway. Image source: Lloooyd#17
Image source: AgonizingFury, wirestock_creators / freepik (not the actual photo)
I used to install Dish Network for a living.
I was installing for an elderly lady, who complained that her "sister's" TV always showed the same thing hers did. I had a 2 tv installation order so I figured that would be OK.
I finished the installation and was demonstrating the system when she looked at the full length mirror and complained that her sister's tv was still showing the same thing.
Noped out of there as quick as I could, and left notes on the account in case she called in.
#18
Image source: Virginin, Anmol Chainani / Unsplash (not the actual photo)
Worked a while in what would probably be called Home Care in english, I've visited a lot of weird people and seen some weird s**t.
Just the other day I was in a apartment so stained by nicotine and other chemicals from smoking that you could literally scrape the residue of the walls and doors. Pounds of it collected over decades of smoking more than a couple of packs a day.
It's sad really, the guy just sits there all day hugging his boxed wine and watch tv and smoke like a chimney.
#19
Image source: anon, Natalia Blauth / Unsplash (not the actual photo)
I petsit. I've got a pretty good set of regular clients built up. I stay at their homes while they're away, which gives me plenty of time to get very familiar with their houses. Surprisingly, I usually feel more at ease at my clients' homes than my own, but weird stuff happens occasionally.
* Last summer, I was taking care of a pair of cats. I went out at 8 pm to stop by the grocery store and pick up some dinner. When I came back, the fireplace was lit. I was terrified, because either someone entered the house and lit the fireplace, or it's malfunctioning and somehow managed to light itself. I went back to my car and called my client to ask if that was a known issue. Woke her up (oops), and she explained that the fireplace was connected to the heating system, and it would turn itself on if the temperature inside got low enough.
* Found an inflatable butt plug in a bathroom drawer of another client's house. I was just looking for some ibuprofen, but I found that instead.
* At a house way out in the middle of nowhere, I was up late studying one evening, and the exterior lights kept turning on. I figured it was just a wild animal, but it only happened one evening in the entire time I was there, and I later tested the range of the motion sensors. You had to be pretty close to the house and make significant movements to turn them on.
* Last month, a couple people were found m******d a block away from my favorite client's previous house. My client moved last year, but it was still scary that that happened in her neighborhood. While I was petsitting at her old house, someone did get stabbed on the trail behind her house.
* While letting the dog out into the front yard in the middle of the night (he likes going out there better), I watched a pair of girls get out of what was probably an Uber. They were clearly trashed, and as they walked down the street toward their house, the driver followed them, asking if they wanted to come home with him. I should have yelled at him that if he didn't leave them alone, I'd call the cops. He did leave them alone eventually, but I stayed outside with the dog until they got inside their house.
I've probably got more, but I can't think of anything at the moment.
#20
Image source: anon
I used to do pest control. While baiting a house for roaches I made my way to their bathroom...and on top of the toilet tank there was a decorative bowl. Nothing out of the ordinary right? Well the bowl wasnt full of extra tp or washcloths..it was full of white-cheddar cheeto puffs.
#21
I was working as a social worker for a home health agency. I got called to a mansion in the most exclusive area of Miami, It belonged to a department store heiress. She was a hoarder. The mansion was filled from top to bottom with racks of clothes and lots of assorted garbage, I finally found her in the garage apartment with just a narrow path through the litter to the bedroom where she was lying in a huge canopy bed. She wore bright red lipstick and told me of her days as one of the first female aviators. Best stories ever. On the way out I almost stumbled over a alligator coming out of what had been the pool but was now a swampy mess. Got relatives from the north to come and get her. She had been out of touch with them for years. Image source: klakritz9#22
Back when I was a door-to-door salesman, I had a bunch of odd experiences, ranging from the mildly odd to the terrifying. 1) One dude decided to give me a tour of the giant backyard shed he used for fermenting wine. It was actually pretty interesting, he explained a lot about how he did it and what it was like running a home winery. Didn't buy anything from me, though. 2) One dud did buy stuff from me, waited until I stepped out to print him his receipt, and was waiting for me wearing nothing but a (very short) bathrobe. That just so happened to fall open as he was receiving his receipt. He then asked if I'd like to stay for coffee. I did not stay for coffee. 3) One dude invited me in, waited until I'd walked into his front room, then locked the door and blocked the doorway. He then just started *screaming* at me. He was screaming about how "You're right out of school, right, and you think you know F*****G EVERYTHING, and you don't know S**T. You're just a NAIVE F*****G IDIOT, and *YOU THINK YOU KNOW THE WORLD*-" This went on for five minutes. He never physically touched me, but he screamed at me the entire time and it was f*****g terrifying. Eventually he let me leave "God, just *leave*" and I bolted out of there like a bat out of hell. I still wonder what the hell that guy's deal was. Image source: anon#23
Image source: receding_punchline, Jon Tyson / Unsplash (not the actual photo)
A couple of years ago I worked for a cleaning company. One of my first days on the job, I was cleaning a woman's house and entered a room on the second floor that - I kid you not - was full of only clocks and mirrors. I've never been so aware of my own mortality.
#24
Image source: anon, ArthurHidden / freepik (not the actual photo)
My wife is a Physical Therapist who does home health visits. She has seen some s**t.
* Several hoarders. People who have bizarrely huge collections of curios like snow globes, crosses, and one lady who had a disturbingly huge collection of Princess Diana memorabilia.
* Several old guys who tried to subtly proposition her for sexual favors. Then there was the one old guy who was recovering from a knee replacement and flat out said something like, "I haven't had a b*****b in like 20 years. Is that something you do?"
* Crazy cat ladies. They are real. And sometimes their houses are infested with fleas.
* There was a lady who had experienced a stroke and had lost a good chunk of her impulse control as well as mobility on one side of her body. Every single time my wife saw her, there were two dildos on her kitchen counter, in plain view of the living room where my wife worked with the patient.
#25
Work in restoration construction. There was an old lady who still had the plate that she had fixed for her husband on the counter for him when he got home. She told us it had been there for like 7 years. It was really gross looking. Also the WHOLE rest of the house she kept EXACTLY like it was on the day he died. Same towel hanging on the bathroom door. His work shirt laying in the hallway floor. As we worked she kept a close eye on us to make sure that we moved NOTHING. She was adamant about the whole situation. It was REALLY CREEPY. The lady was nice though; she just had a screw loose upstairs. Image source: TheGreatWhiteFightDE
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